been,
in tight rows. Thick streams of smoke did exactly as the thinner
ones had done earlier. She photographed them, paying close
attention to the confessional box that had been taped off. There
was nothing unusual about the air flow. When six were placed on the
bloodied altar, the smoke billowed up and split, half rolling up to
the dome that was somewhat behind the altar and the rest flowing up
to the nave roof. It then drifted slowly to the gospel side,
towards the side door there.
Asking Andy to open all the outer doors, she
collected all the cones and dampened them. Then they waited for the
Church to clear. It took a good half hour and the temperature
dropped sharply. They watched the doors that had been opened and
managed to get the Church sealed back down again before any of the
promised patrols noticed anything.
‘We’ve established the normal air flow for
the building, now we clean and clear.’
Maryam took a long thin blade out from the
partitioned lining of her case. About nine inches long, double
sided.
‘It’s steel, and will suffice as a sword, or
a dagger, depending on the ritual.’
She walked over to the altar and started to
draw shapes in the air using the blade, also touching her head,
chest, heart, and mouth. She started facing East and the transept
doorway. Andrew heard her call out to the angel Rafael in Latin.
She turned South and spoke out Michael, then West and Gabriel. She
turned North, facing the apse and the tabernacle, and spoke the
name Uriel. The hairs on the back of Andy’s neck stood up and he
turned away. He came to understand Fred’s resistance in a visceral,
emotional way. It was one thing to know, intellectually, that the
Arcane did things that you wouldn’t do in normal service. That you
knew there were exorcism rites in the Church and priests trained to
deliver them. It was quite another thing to actually witness a
woman on the altar, speaking Latin, drawing pentagrams in the air
with a sword, speaking the name of an arch-angel never mentioned in
the bible; not part of your faith, your canon. To witness her doing
this with an altar stained with blood, someone’s life blood. He
felt sick and ran to the back doors.
He made it to the toilet tucked in the back
of the vestibule and threw up. His body shook as he washed his face
and hands, rinsed out his mouth. What had been an intellectual
understanding that someone had tried to commit sacrilege in a
Church was now a fundamental emotional connection for him. He was
covered in cold sweat when he returned to Maryam and her work upon
the altar, wondering if he had the strength for it.
She was finishing off the nunc
dimittis and he searched his memory for why she might be
dismissing a servant of the Lord, encouraging them to pass
over.
‘ Quod parasti ante faciem omnium
populorum... Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuae
Israel... ’
As she spoke she was sprinkling water, holy
water, all over the altar and on any area of dried blood on the
stone flags of the floor.
He sat down on the front pew shaking, his
head in his hands. Oh, he was the wrong person for this. In his
heart of hearts, he’d been dismissive of the Bishop’s objections
and feelings. Not now. Now he was impressed at Atkins’s strength,
how he’d accepted the command of his Church despite his personal
feelings. Humility: it was a never ending lesson.
Something odd occurred as the prayer came to
an end. He felt a breeze across his face, caught the scent of...
roses. Neither rose oil nor rose incense, or even chemical rose
scented air freshener; it was the fragrance of real flowers. The
delicate scent of tea roses. He raised his head. By the altar,
Maryam Michael was standing with her arms outstretched and palms
uplifted. Despite the blood, the death, the finger print powder
covering everything... there was a sense of deep peace, of
acceptance, communion and freedom, emanating from the altar. His
mind could not comprehend it but his soul, the
in tight rows. Thick streams of smoke did exactly as the thinner
ones had done earlier. She photographed them, paying close
attention to the confessional box that had been taped off. There
was nothing unusual about the air flow. When six were placed on the
bloodied altar, the smoke billowed up and split, half rolling up to
the dome that was somewhat behind the altar and the rest flowing up
to the nave roof. It then drifted slowly to the gospel side,
towards the side door there.
Asking Andy to open all the outer doors, she
collected all the cones and dampened them. Then they waited for the
Church to clear. It took a good half hour and the temperature
dropped sharply. They watched the doors that had been opened and
managed to get the Church sealed back down again before any of the
promised patrols noticed anything.
‘We’ve established the normal air flow for
the building, now we clean and clear.’
Maryam took a long thin blade out from the
partitioned lining of her case. About nine inches long, double
sided.
‘It’s steel, and will suffice as a sword, or
a dagger, depending on the ritual.’
She walked over to the altar and started to
draw shapes in the air using the blade, also touching her head,
chest, heart, and mouth. She started facing East and the transept
doorway. Andrew heard her call out to the angel Rafael in Latin.
She turned South and spoke out Michael, then West and Gabriel. She
turned North, facing the apse and the tabernacle, and spoke the
name Uriel. The hairs on the back of Andy’s neck stood up and he
turned away. He came to understand Fred’s resistance in a visceral,
emotional way. It was one thing to know, intellectually, that the
Arcane did things that you wouldn’t do in normal service. That you
knew there were exorcism rites in the Church and priests trained to
deliver them. It was quite another thing to actually witness a
woman on the altar, speaking Latin, drawing pentagrams in the air
with a sword, speaking the name of an arch-angel never mentioned in
the bible; not part of your faith, your canon. To witness her doing
this with an altar stained with blood, someone’s life blood. He
felt sick and ran to the back doors.
He made it to the toilet tucked in the back
of the vestibule and threw up. His body shook as he washed his face
and hands, rinsed out his mouth. What had been an intellectual
understanding that someone had tried to commit sacrilege in a
Church was now a fundamental emotional connection for him. He was
covered in cold sweat when he returned to Maryam and her work upon
the altar, wondering if he had the strength for it.
She was finishing off the nunc
dimittis and he searched his memory for why she might be
dismissing a servant of the Lord, encouraging them to pass
over.
‘ Quod parasti ante faciem omnium
populorum... Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuae
Israel... ’
As she spoke she was sprinkling water, holy
water, all over the altar and on any area of dried blood on the
stone flags of the floor.
He sat down on the front pew shaking, his
head in his hands. Oh, he was the wrong person for this. In his
heart of hearts, he’d been dismissive of the Bishop’s objections
and feelings. Not now. Now he was impressed at Atkins’s strength,
how he’d accepted the command of his Church despite his personal
feelings. Humility: it was a never ending lesson.
Something odd occurred as the prayer came to
an end. He felt a breeze across his face, caught the scent of...
roses. Neither rose oil nor rose incense, or even chemical rose
scented air freshener; it was the fragrance of real flowers. The
delicate scent of tea roses. He raised his head. By the altar,
Maryam Michael was standing with her arms outstretched and palms
uplifted. Despite the blood, the death, the finger print powder
covering everything... there was a sense of deep peace, of
acceptance, communion and freedom, emanating from the altar. His
mind could not comprehend it but his soul, the
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